Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent took Jackson to three other properties that might be a better fit and brought him to a lunchtime gathering of the Bremerton Central Lions Club.

Jackson said he told the group about Evergreen's treatment modality and then asked for leads on possible locations. He said the mayor's efforts were something he hasn't experienced elsewhere. "I've never been chauffeured around the town by a mayor before," he said.

Evergreen would have needed to install sprinklers and get a conditional use permit to locate at CenCom, which would take at least four months even if no one in the area objected. The CenCom building lies at the edge of a residential neighborhood, a short walk from Evergreen Rotary Park.

The decision leaves open the future of the vacant former CenCom building. The city purchased a portion of the 0.61-acre site earlier this month from the county so that the property would be owned by a single party. The city hopes to sell the property and having it under one owner was assumed to make such a sale easier.

Jackson hops to have a treatment center open within six months, but that mostly depends on finding a suitable location. "We don't want to shoehorn ourselves into a place where we're not wanted," he said.